Elton John - Sad Songs. Like, the song that pretty much defines the category.
Paramore - That’s What You Get. Sound of a John Parr or Bryan Adams power ballad, subject matter straight from Linkin Park.
bis - I’m a Slut. I trust that this one doesn’t require much explanation, I just want to remind everyone that it’s about using perceived sluttiness as an excuse to treat her like crap (which makes it a lot darker IMO).
EMF - Unbelievable. By far their only song that came within a marathon of catchy, containing a level of hostility that makes Nookie look like a minor hissy fit.
Mike Oldfield/Missing Heart - Moonlight Shadow. It’s been years since I played that song to death on Dance Dance Revolution, slightly less time that I actually listened to the entire lyrics, and to this day…brrr. A haunting beautiful, melodic song about A GUY GETTING SHOT TO DEATH.
Jodi Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi. When I first heard this as a kid, all I could discern was that it was incredibly cheery and the singer did a quick laugh near the end. Listened to a cover with an easier-to-understand singer years later. Major eye-opener.
Green Day - Minority. Easy their happiest, peppiest song…well, ever, about a white guy who absolutely resents being a white guy.
Should we include rock & roll in the discussion? You could pull up dozens of songs in that genre alone, going back all the way to Elvis Presley (Marie). Lucky Ball & Chain sounds like pretty much every other rock & roll lost-love song I’m familiar with.
Strainger - You mention Artifical Flowers and forget the far more famous (and egregious) Mack The Knife?
brujaja - I’ve never found anything remotely dark about Safety Dance. It’s about dancing, being free, being happy, and not caring what anyone thinks of it. Having watched both professional football and Dancing With The Stars, I can assure you that acting like an imbecile is perfectly compatible with such a mindset.
mswas - Oh, yes. I freakin’ hate that song. Whoever decided that it was an appropriate choice to be played live at a Super Bowl/New Year’s Eve celebration/Olympiad (don’t remember which it was) should’ve been flogged.
Askance - Ummmm…The One I Love sounds happy to you?
Mack The Knife - A great swinging big band jazz number about a mass murdering gangster. You know the part at the end, with all the names being mentioned? Those are all the people MacHeath killed.
Tom Jones’ Delilah, an upbeat little ditty about the violent murder of a woman by a man who claims to be her (current? ex?) boyfriend, but may be just an obsessive stalker. Popular at weddings.
*At break of day when that man drove away I was waiting
I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more *
The big-hit version of that song, when I was coming up, was sung in German. I never had any idea what it was about; I wondered vaguely if it had something to do with The Red Balloon — you know, that movie we watched in grade school, right between the “Duck and Cover” drill and recess.
The “Born In The USA” album is full of these. Darlington County - Bruce and his buddy road-trip to a new town with big hopes and dreams. The buddy goes missing and ends up arrested, and Bruce leaves town without him. Workin’ on the Highway - This is the lovely tale of a man in prison for statutory rape, who spends his days laboring on a highway chain-gang.
But these, along with Glory Days and the title track, are upbeat, raucous rockers that are fun to sing along with.
Also, Jewel’s You Were Meant For Me sounds like a bouncy little love ditty. “You were meant for me, and I was meant for you.” Awww. That’s nice. But listen more closely, and it’s really about depression, false hope, and desperation.
I never thought it was about suicide so much as a desire to not have those weights and pressures carried around by those who have grown up. With the medicine chest, I just figured it was along the lines of “I don’t want to take prozac and hypertension medicine just to get through my day in one piece.” Could go either way, I suppose.
**Last Kiss **by J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. A wonderfully upbeat song about how a guy kills his girlfriend in a car crash and how he misses her terribly. I never knew what a depressing tune it was until I heard Pearl Jam’s version of it.
Fuck You by Lily Allen - Incredibly bouncy and upbeat, but it’s a wicked excoriation of the Bush II administration.
The Way by Fastball - Minor key but still kind of upbeat to me, about an urban legend of an older couple setting off for an RV vacation and disappearing without a trace.
